Hannah Georgas grew up outside of Toronto and always thought it was a treat to come to Massey Hall. She says “My 18-year old self would be pretty psyched to play here.”

Georgas has two backing musicians Robbie Driscoll on bass/ableton and Dean Stone on drums/SPD. She also plays keys but not for every song.

Most of her songs are quite spare–primarily featuring her voice. The music is often slow washes and a drumbeat.

“Elephant” opens with warping synth sounds and Hannah singing. The song builds nicely over four minutes with an interesting guitar accent and some powerful drumming. Hannah also jumps on the keys a bit for the end.

“Lost Cause” starts with Hannah playing keys and singing. It’s spare with just the piano and drums and a nice melody. Her voice is quite lovely.

“Rideback” has great interesting sounds from her keyboard–like horns or harmonicas or something. I’m more intrigued by these sounds than the song itself.

“Naked Beaches” sounds like a slow dance song–a simple beat with a single note keyboard riff ringing through the song. Her voice is echoed a lot on this song (both echos and harmonies) and it sounds really nice.

“Don’t Go” is another spare track. It’s almost all drums with washes of synth and Hannah’s voice.

I was surprised to see her play a cover. It was the Eurhythmics’ “Love is a Stranger.” Hannah doesn’t sound like Annie Lennox, but she doesn’t sound all that different from her–it’s a good pairing for her and her band.

“Waste” has a whole series of wonderfully weirdo noises in its melody. It starts fairly quietly but after the first few vocal lines, a kind of distorted synth line starts the melody, but its the chorus that really adds the weirdness with horns that sound like horns but also like screams. Its really fun and funky, and is my favorite song of her set.

“Waiting Game” is a pulsing song with some chugging guitar and synth stabs as accents. The set ends with “Enemies,” a quiet song with pulsing synths and drums and lights to accompany them. For the chorus, things smooth out with some nice synth washes.

This show was on the same night as Rhye, and I honestly can’t tell who was the headliner.

[READ: May 15, 2019] “Going Up the Mountain”

I loved this short story which speculates how our lives might turn out in a few years.

The story begins “The mountain sits in the middle of town.” The mountain has always been there and it will continue to always be there. It’s right in the middle–a brief walk for everyone. You can’t miss it.

When people see each other in town the ask if they have gone up the mountain that day.

A neighbor “grins a tight grin and gives the sort of shrug people always give when they haven’t gone up the mountain.” (more…)